Publications

December 9, 2004

Organizing wins

California - 450 dietary and housekeeping employees of San Diego's Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women.

New Mexico - 108 municipal workers in Espanola, who refused to knuckle under when the mayor reversed his agreement to accept card check. More than 80 percent of the workers "checked," so AFSCME's Council 18 prevailed.

Illinois - 48 employees of the Charleston Transitional Facility, which cares for the developmentally disabled. The victory came via a re-run election, which was ordered after Council 31 protested the employer's conduct in the original vote last March.

Okie uncertainty

AFSCME's recent major victory in Oklahoma — gaining collective bargaining for municipal employees in cities with populations of 35,000 or more — is under legal and political challenge. About 1,130 workers are eligible in the six cities involved. Officials in Lawton and Enid are questioning the constitutionality of the law, and a hearing on its legality is set for Jan. 7. Bartlesville officials argue that they fall under the 35,000 threshold, and a judge has issued an injunction pending a resolution of the factual issues. On the political front, a state legislator has introduced a bill to repeal the legislation that obliges those cities to bargain collectively.

Temps get trashed

Temporary workers hired through staffing firms have no legal right to bargain collectively, the NLRB has ruled, reversing a four-year- old precedent. The 3-2 decision, involving a New York nursing home, ends the practice of letting temps be part of a unit of permanent employees for purposes of bargaining over wages and benefits — unless both employers agree to that arrangement. Not surprisingly, President Bush had appointed the board members who sided against the temp workers. Kerry Korpi, director of AFSCME's Department of Research and Collective Bargaining Services, called the ruling "the latest in a series of decisions that erode workers' right to organize. This one directly affects AFSCME members who work in the private sector. And since state labor boards often use NLRB decisions to guide their actions, this could affect our members in the public sector as well."

Deal struck

After protracted and sometimes acrimonious negotiations, Philadelphia's blue-collar union, the 11,000-member Council 33, has reached a tentative agreement with the city on a four-year contract giving members a signing bonus in the first year and subsequent annual raise hikes of 2, 3 and 4 percent. It is essentially the same deal reached two months ago with Council 47, the 7,000-member white-collar union. The deal also increases the city's payments to 33's health care fund by 10 percent in each of the first two years. The union's contract expired on July 1.

Christmas cheer

City workers in Menlo Park, Calif., have a new contract covering the next two fiscal years. The 37 supervisors and managers represented by Local 829 (Council 57) will see paycheck increases of 2 percent, retroactive to Oct. 31, plus improvements in retirement, health care and sick-leave benefits. The city's human resources director said the raise was needed to keep Menlo Park competitive with other local public employers.

Whodunnit? Unclear

Jose Gilberto Soto, a former organizer with NUHHCE/AFSCME Local 1199J in New Jersey, was murdered in El Salvador several weeks ago, and officials of the Teamsters, for whom he was working at that time, are reacting with caution to the arrest of six suspects. Salvadoran police have detained Soto's mother-in-law, along with five suspected collaborators. Authorities say the killing, outside his family's house in the city of Usulutan, was the result of a family dispute. Soto worked for 1199J from November 1994 until he joined the Teamsters in February 2000.

Unfair, unjust

Council 18 has filed a complaint with the state Public Employee Labor Relations Board on behalf of employees of New Mexico State University who are trying to form a union. The council accuses school administrators and supervisors of questioning workers about their pro-union activities, intimidating students who support the workers' efforts and hiring a union-busting consultant.

Hurricane help

Florida residents are still suffering from the aftermath of the four hurricanes that attacked the state in September, and insurance and public programs don't cover all the damage. So AFSCME has set up a disaster relief fund. You can donate by sending checks, payable to "Council 79 Relief Fund," to AFSCME Council 79, 3064 Highland Oaks Terrace, Tallahassee, Fla. 32301.

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